


when & when & when & after.

by winterwinterwinter



Category: Fargo (TV)
Genre: Baby Fix-It, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 10:34:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17785754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterwinterwinter/pseuds/winterwinterwinter
Summary: four valentine's days.





	when & when & when & after.

when they were eighteen and together - like,  _ together  _ \- for the first time, wes peeled himself from grady’s side in the morning and walked down to the little flower shop on the corner, where he bought a little card shaped like a heart. the little old lady behind the counter waggled her eyebrows, pinched her lips together as she smiled, like she was trying to hide it. she gestured toward the roses, red and big and soft behind him, tried to sell some. he imagined presenting grady with a bouquet, saw him laughing, ignored the sting of disappointment he felt toward his own daydream. he got back and scribbled around the generic greeting inside: grady - love, wes.

he slid back into bed beside grady, who was still asleep. he mouthed at his neck until he woke up giggling, and gave him the card.

grady rolled his eyes at it - the shape, the colors, the puppy on the front with big, sparkly brown eyes just like his. he read it and tossed it on the floor.  


_valentine’s day is shit,_ he said. _it’s made up._ conveniently he didn't mention _love,_ the closing salutation that wes wrote with a shaky hand.  


_you're shit,_ wes said.

_oh, fuck you,_ grady said.

 

♡

 

when they were twenty-four, they had an empty day between the end of one job and the beginning of the next. the motel room was theirs until the next morning. they decided to unwind, and unwinding lead to cuddling, and cuddling lead to kissing, and kissing lead to - you know.

wes stroked circles across grady’s belly as he lay against him, panting, coming down. wes focused on their skin, where grady's back met his chest, where their legs overlapped. sometimes wes dreamed of taking a candle flame to the seam of their bodies so the skin would melt and they would be one. sex was the closest he could get to that, and when they breathed the same - inhale, _one,_ exhale; inhale, _one,_ exhale - sometimes wes felt like they were anyway.

with his other hand he reached for the beer on the nightstand - they’d picked it up early that day, when they went out to breakfast, knowing they'd spend the rest of the day loose and lazy in their room no matter what - and pressed it against grady’s forehead. grady arched into the chill of it just slightly before he resettled, reaching for the can. he sat beside wes now, and they were two again.  


_valentine’s day,_ wes said.

grady snorted around his beer. _you ass,_ he said.

 

♡

 

when they were thirty, wes got shot in the shoulder. not for the first time, not for the last, but it happened. grady took chase, mowed down the bastard, rage-blind, while wes sat himself up against one of the parking garage walls.

he sat there, holding his shoulder, eyes drooping from pain, from exhaustion - they’d been awake for twenty hours, swear to god. he thought of grady - inevitable, when wasn't he thinking of grady - and imagined he was slumped against the muddy wall of a trench, ground shaking below him. still holding his shoulder, other men stepping around him, stumbling against the quakes of explosions. when he felt grady there, dropping to his knees beside him, he let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in. in the back of his mind, grady fell next to him in the trench, grabbing his shoulder roughly, trembling -  


_too old for this,_ he managed with one hand. grady slapped at his cheek.

“fucking hell,” he watched grady say.

they spent valentine's day in a gas station bathroom, grady plucking the bullet from the gaping hole in wes's shoulder, sewing it shut. wes dabbed his finger in his own blood and seized grady's wrist, drawing a streaky, macabre heart.

_that's sick,_ grady said, but he kissed wes anyway.

 

♡

 

after - after bemidji, after duluth, after lester and malvo and varga and nikki and stussy, _after_ \- they’re holed up in their little cabin deep in the woods. the chickens are fed, their three-legged dog - damaged and haggard and old, just like them - is napping on the stairs. wes sets his book, borrowed from the library in the small dusty town an hour away, down on the coffee table. he stretches and ambles into the kitchen.

the jagged scar around grady’s neck is an ever-present reminder of harsh reality - wes almost lost him. it makes wes feel things, dark things, tendrils whipping around in his stomach and chest and head. he ignores those things - it's easy to, some days - and sidles up behind grady instead, dips his head down to mouth at his neck. grady leans into it, and wes wraps his arms around his middle.

wes looks over grady’s shoulder. on the counter in front of them are a dozen half-burnt, lumpy heart-shaped cookies. they look so bad that wes should laugh, but instead he feels like crying. he takes a deep breath and buries his nose in grady’s hair. he feels grady’s knuckles stroking his arm.

the cookies end up in the dog dish. grady ends up cradled against wes’s chest on the couch for the bulk of the evening, dozing off to the ebb and flow of his breathing, scarred and worn but safe, safe, safe.

**Author's Note:**

> very disjointed. perhaps the worst title i've ever used.


End file.
